1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a connector.
2. Description of the Relented Art
Conventionally, a charging cable is provided to charge a battery that is mounted on an electrically driven vehicle such as an electric vehicle (EV) and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) (see JP 2010-110055A, for example). This charging cable includes a power supply plug that detachably connects to an electrical outlet of a commercial power supply, and a vehicle connector that detachably connects to the electrically driven vehicle and supplies a charging current to the battery of the electrically driven vehicle, and the power supply plug and the vehicle connector are connected by an electrical cable. Moreover, a control box is provided partway along the electrical cable, and inside the control box, an open-close circuit that opens and closes an electric path between the power supply plug and the vehicle connector and a control circuit that stops supply of the commercial power supply by opening the electric path through the open-close circuit when an abnormality is detected during charging are accommodated.
With this charging cable, the battery is charged by the electric power supplied from the commercial power supply, by connecting the power supply plug to the electrical outlet and connecting the vehicle connector to the electrically driven vehicle. Moreover, with this charging cable, if an abnormality occurs (such as a temperature increase of the power supply plug, or an electric leakage, for example) during battery charging, the control circuit detects the abnormality and opens the electric path through the open-close circuit and stops charging of the battery. Accordingly, circuit protection can be provided when an abnormality occurs.
However, with the charging cable of JP 2010-110055A described above, since the control box is provided in the middle of the electric cable, the control box can hamper storage of the electric cable. Note that, although a charging cable that does not include a control box has been conventionally provided, this charging cable does not include the function of detecting abnormalities that occur on an electric path, and in order to include the function to detect abnormality, the control box needs to be provided in the middle of the electric cable.
Moreover, a conventional control apparatus functions to stop supply of the commercial power supply, and does not have a protection function against electric power originating from an electric storage device (EV) when an abnormality occurs in the wiring between the connector with the electric storage device and the control box. If a short-circuit abnormality occurs in the above region, there is no protection against the short-circuit current caused by electric power of the electrically driven vehicle (electric storage device), and if an electric leakage abnormality occurs in the above region, protection is not available against the electric leakage of electric power from the electrically driven vehicle (electric storage device), even though the connection is open in the control box.